While It Rains - For Your Reading Pleasure

Recently posted by Jack L on the Brisbane Ultimate lists....

Hello all,

A short while ago Molly put out an email to the mailing list about a free sports forum provided by the Government. I recall Nat also went to one a little while back? I went along to see what it was like and found it to be waaay better than anything I had hoped for. I have written a review here of what was involved giving my reccommendation for these sessions in case anyone was intrigued.

On Tuesday 05/10 at Nudgee College, Boondall, I attended this free forum provided by the State Government's Department of Communites and needless to say, I was very impressed with the material presented by the more-then-qualified speakers.

The night included four speakers on the topics of recovery, psychology, coaching and performance analysis. The night was organised by a man called Brad Reid, who would be the contact if you would like to attend any more of these nights, and was hosted by Grant Mitchell a.k.a. Curly, an Australian Basketball legend.

The first speaker, Chris Weier, spoke about training and recovery. Chris mainly focused on recovery, the methods used, the time frames and nutrition involved. He also talked about methods that help gauge where you might be in your stage of recovery. He briefly touched on strength training methods with an emphasis on body weight excersies. This information could be very handy for Ultimate players who are looking to get into a bit more serious training. I have studied fitness myself and this man still had so much to teach, and his brain was brilliant to pick after the presentations! If you are interested in training with this man or undertaking fitness qualifications, he can do it all. Visit his website http://www.fitnance.com.au/

The second speaker, my favorite and an extremely good entertainer was Dr. Phil Jauncey, a sports pschologist. Apart from having a rediculous list of athletes he has worked with (and believe me, he likes to name drop in his stories and jokes - ranging from NRL teams, including both finalists this year, the Australian cricket team
and just about every Australian Olympian) he has a great sense of humour and at times I thought I was at a stand up show! Very memorable. Phil spoke about the difference between the mindset of someone who chokes or fails compared to success. I found this very enlightening and he certainly put a few things in perspective for me. I am interested to see how well I can play the head game using his advice next time I
play some high pressure Ultimate.

The third speaker, Mike Young a.k.a. Youngy, a American baseball coach with international titles under his belt, so good at his job (he even has a wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Young_(coach), the Australian Cricket team approached him and hired him as their fielding coach. And this guy had never even heard of Cricket in his life! Youngy spoke about coaching and what he thought was the most important qualities of a successful coach. He definitely brought up some ideals and processes I will keep in mind next time I coach someone, Ultimate or otherwise. Though this was mainly aimed around youth development, it can still be applied anywhere else.

The last speaker, was a real inspiration and a veteren Paralympian, Brendan Bourkett. When Brendan was young, he was the vicitim of a hit and run which
resulted in an amputated leg, he went on to break several swimming records at multiple Paralympics. Brendan is now a coach for the Australian paralympic swim team and a professor of Sport Science (Biomechanics). Brendan spoke about biomechanics and the best forms of analysing movements. He also had a lot of interesting footage from Beijing he used as examples, including a swimmer with no arms and one leg, who actually placed in his race against swimmers with more limbs!

These fantastic speakers, hard copies of the subject matter available and free food supplied, I really felt like I should have been paying for this night. I highly reccommend these events to anyone who has a thirst for knoweledge in the areas of fitness or coaching.

There is a repeat of this particular night coming up in November as well as dedicated nights for each subject (and ones not covered here eg nutrition). Hit up http://www.sportrec.qld.gov.au/EventCalendar.aspx for the calender of events, they are mostly located around the south side but still pretty accessible to Brisbanites.

If you managed my novel, thanks!

Jack